and direct
legislation might promptly invest this slave of society with his primary
rights, and pave the way for further rights, may, step by step, be
traced.

_The Relation of Wages to Political Conditions._

The wages scale pivots on the strike. The employer's order for a
reduction is his strike; to be effective, a reserve of the unemployed
must be at his command. The wage-worker's demand for an increase is his
strike; to be effective it must be backed up by the indispensableness of
his services to the employer. Accordingly as the worker forces up the
scale of wages, he is the more free, independent, and gainer of his
product. To show the most direct way to the conditions in which workers
may command steady work and raise their wages, this book is written. For
the wages question equitably settled, the foundation for every remaining
social reform is laid.

To-day, in the United States, in scores, nay, hundreds, of industrial
communities the wage-working class is in the majority. The wage-workers
commonly believe, what is true, that they are the victims of injustice.
As yet, however, no project for restoring their rights has been
successful. All the radical means suggested have been beyond their
reach. But in so far as a single community may exercise equal rights
and self-government, through these means it may approximate to just
social arrangements.

Any American city of 50,000 inhabitants may be taken as illustrative of
all American industrial communities. In such a city, the economical and
political conditions are typical. The immediate commercial interests of
the buyers of labor, the employers, are opposed to those of the sellers
of labor, the employed. To control the price of labor, each of these
parties in the labor market resorts to whatever measures it finds within
command. The employers in many branches of industry actually, and
employers in general tacitly, combine against the labor organizations.
On the wage-workers' side, these organizations are the sole means,
except a few well-nigh futile laws, yet developed to raise wages and
shorten the work day. In case of a strike, the employers, to assist the
police in intimidating the strikers, may engage a force of armed
so-called detectives. Simply, perhaps, for inviting non-unionists to
cease work, the strikers are subject to imprisonment. Trial for
conspiracy may follow arrest, the judges allied by class interests with
the employers. The newspapers, carefu